21 KiB
S02|L11 - midjourney pt2 - create midjourney prompts
- Links
- Notes
- Review - Prompt Research & Generation
- Summary
- Core Principle
- Method 1: Midjourney Community Feed
- How to Use the Feed
- Example Workflow
[0/5] - Insight
- Method 2: Prompt Borrowing
- Prompt Composition Pattern
- Method 3: Artist Style Reference
- Important Considerations
- Safer Approach
- Example
- Effect
- Method 4: PromptHero
- Example Use Case
- Before vs After
- Prompt Expansion Technique
- Prompt Building Checklist
[0/6] - Strategy: Learn → Combine → Adapt
- Key Insight
- Bottom Line
- Transcript
Links
Notes
finding good prompts
-
one option is to look at the community feed
- the images have the prompts used to make them
- use search feature in discover
character by -
- https://midlibrary.io
- using an artist in the public domain and 'character by [artist]'
prompthero
https://prompthero.com/midjourney-prompts
- use to find gooed keywords
Review - Prompt Research & Generation
Summary
This lesson explains how to create better Midjourney prompts by using external resources and studying how others write prompts.
The key idea: You do not need to invent prompts from scratch.
Instead:
- research
- borrow structure
- adapt
- combine ideas
Core Principle
Great prompts come from:
- exposure to many examples
- understanding keywords
- remixing what already works
Not from guessing blindly.
Method 1: Midjourney Community Feed
The Midjourney public feed is one of the best prompt-learning tools.
Why:
- shows real outputs
- shows full prompts
- reveals hidden keywords
- demonstrates structure
How to Use the Feed
-
search for a concept
- “Japanese art”
- “corgi”
- “pattern”
- open an image you like
- study the full prompt
- extract useful parts
- reuse / modify
Example Workflow [0/5]
- find image you like
- read full prompt
- identify style keywords
- copy relevant phrases
- adapt to your subject
Insight
Short prompt:
corgi
Rich prompt:
corgi, sticker, flat vector art style, clean lines
Result difference:
- basic prompt → generic output
- rich prompt → targeted style
Method 2: Prompt Borrowing
You can combine prompts from different sources.
Example:
- take “Japanese art style” prompt
- apply it to “corgi”
Result:
- hybrid concept
- new design direction
Prompt Composition Pattern
[subject] + [style] + [medium] + [details]
Example:
corgi, Japanese ink painting style, soft brush strokes, minimal background
Method 3: Artist Style Reference
Using artist names can produce very specific styles.
Example:
corgi in the style of [artist]
Important Considerations
- controversial topic
- based on training from artists’ work
- legal status varies by jurisdiction
- ethical considerations differ
Safer Approach
Use:
- public domain artists
- historical styles
- general style descriptions
Instead of:
- living artists (if you want to avoid issues)
Example
sunflower illustration in the style of a classical botanical artist
Effect
- faster style targeting
- less trial-and-error
- more consistent outputs
Method 4: PromptHero
PromptHero is a database of real prompts.
Use it to:
- search by topic
- discover advanced keywords
- copy structured prompts
- refine your own
Example Use Case
Search:
Japanese pattern
Extract:
- “intricate”
- “ornate”
- “textile”
- “organic texture”
- “color palette”
Then apply:
Japanese sea waves, intricate ornate textile pattern, organic texture, --tile
Before vs After
Basic:
sea waves pattern
Advanced:
intricate Japanese sea waves, ornate textile pattern, organic texture, detailed color palette --tile
Result:
- far more detailed
- closer to target aesthetic
- more usable for products
Prompt Expansion Technique
Take a simple idea:
sunflower
Expand it:
minimalist black line art sunflower, botanical illustration, clean lines, white background
Then refine:
minimalist botanical sunflower illustration, fine line art, vintage engraving style, white background
Prompt Building Checklist [0/6]
- subject defined clearly
- style added
- medium specified (art, vector, painting, etc.)
- detail level controlled (minimal / intricate)
- background defined
- optional modifiers added (lighting, texture, etc.)
Strategy: Learn → Combine → Adapt
Do NOT:
- rely on one prompt
- expect perfect output immediately
DO:
- study many prompts
- mix components
- iterate repeatedly
Key Insight
The fastest way to improve prompting is not creativity.
It is pattern recognition.
You learn:
- which words produce which results
- which structures work
- how to combine them
Bottom Line
Use:
- Midjourney feed → inspiration
- PromptHero → structured prompts
- artist references → style shortcuts
Then:
- combine ideas
- refine prompts
- iterate until the image matches your intent
Transcript
00:00 Hey, everyone. In this video, 00:02 we're gonna use websites to help us create 00:06 amazing prompts so that we can create 00:08 the perfect picture that we want to print. 00:11 And the way that you create amazing prompts is that 00:14 you learn a lot about the different 00:17 things that you can ask, 00:18 MidGenie to, 00:20 add into it. Now, I wish I could create a 00:22 huge list view, but I can't because it really depends 00:24 upon what image you want to create. 00:26 What I can do, however, 00:28 is help 00:30 you put your idea into life 00:32 by showing you different websites that you can use to 00:35 research different images 00:36 that might help inspire you with different prompts to get 00:39 you where you wanna be. So 00:42 the first website 00:44 is Midjourney itself. 00:45 Now remember how with Midjourney, you can select to have 00:47 images be public or stealth. If you have the pro 00:51 account, you can choose stealth. If you don't choose stealth, 00:54 if you've got a different account, for example, and you 00:55 choose for it to be public because maybe it has 00:57 to be because you don't have the stealth option, 01:00 the image can be in the community feed. And so 01:02 people can search for it and can find it. 01:05 And this is a wonderful resource for people to learn 01:08 how to prompt. So 01:10 we come here, for example, and we take a look 01:12 at this image. 01:13 It's, you know, really beautifully detailed. 01:16 And 01:17 a big part of why is because it's got all 01:18 of these different 01:20 prompts in it. 01:22 And so these are things that 01:23 you may have not actually considered to add into it. 01:26 If we just came and put in Amazing Ancient If 01:28 we just came in and did, you know, a prompt 01:30 for this 01:33 let's 01:36 complete this prompt. 01:39 And we come 01:42 up here. Also, I apologize if you were if you've 01:46 seen my first video on this, you'll know that my 01:49 dog, Starbuck, 01:50 is currently with me in the house. 01:52 He's being a little barky. 01:54 If I have to pause this video, 01:56 it's probably because 01:57 of him. 02:00 But if we come and we do a if we 02:01 come and, do this, we'll probably get a very, very 02:04 different result 02:05 to 02:06 what they got. And partially, that's because they've already done 02:09 a lot of rerolls 02:11 to get what they want. 02:13 But a big part of it is because of the 02:15 fact not a big part, you know, the biggest part 02:18 of it of all is because they've done so many 02:21 they've added so many extra 02:23 details 02:25 to the prompt. 02:27 And so we're gonna have a very, very different result 02:30 to what they have. 02:36 We're almost there. 02:38 This here, 02:39 very, 02:40 very different 02:43 to what 02:44 they got 02:45 because of all these other additional things that they added 02:47 in. 02:48 And so 02:50 this is how you can discover 02:52 fantastic prompts. You can either use those same prompts or 02:56 what you would probably want to do is go in 02:58 and modify them. 03:00 So let's come 03:02 and 03:03 let's look for art because perhaps you wanted to create 03:06 Japanese art. 03:08 Well, now 03:09 we have a huge range of different, prompts 03:12 that we can apply. 03:14 So 03:15 here, let's come say for example. 03:19 So many to pick from here. 03:26 This 1 here, for example. 03:34 You might, for example, 03:37 portrait. 03:38 Let's come and let's take this. 03:47 And 03:48 then 03:49 let's come and take 03:52 our 03:56 Colby 03:58 prompts. 04:06 Where is that, though? 04:12 We'll see what it creates. 04:14 And so if we had been in our brain wanting 04:17 to create 04:18 a Japanese style, 04:20 art of a Korgi, 04:22 Well, 04:23 by coming 04:25 into the Midjourney feed and seeing this, we've been able 04:28 to come in here and get some inspiration 04:30 for different things that we can add in to it. 04:33 And you'll see that we're already gonna have a very, 04:35 very different style 04:38 of Corgi 04:40 because of, the prompt that we used, 04:43 that we gained inspiration from all this. 04:57 Almost there. 04:59 Wow. Isn't that beautiful? 05:02 Isn't that incredible? 05:04 So come back here. Let's say that we, 05:09 rather than Japanese artists, come, like, search for corgi 05:13 to cartoon. 05:16 Because, you know, we might have in our brain and 05:19 our ideas say, you know, we wanna have a Corgi. 05:21 We want we wanna have an animated Corgi, 05:24 but we just can't think about, you know, the different 05:26 styles that we want it to be in. 05:28 So, 05:29 because, you know, we put in Corgi into it, and 05:31 it just didn't create the style of Corgi that we 05:33 wanted. So let's say that this here, 05:36 well, 05:37 this 1 here 05:38 is using, 05:40 trademarked, 05:41 phrases. And we'll get to we'll get to that in 05:44 a in a minute, 05:48 about 05:50 about about that. 05:53 Wow. Look at that. Corgi blueprint. 05:55 See, look at all the amazing things that you can 05:57 get here. 06:04 S. 06:10 Let's come 06:11 and say 06:12 that we 06:18 I won't use the 1 with the trade. I cannot 06:21 oh, sorry. Let's come get those up again. 06:27 This 1 here. So let's see. You might come here 06:30 and you'll see that, 06:31 you could come and get inspiration from this here. 06:35 So, 06:37 sticker, flat, vector, art style. 06:39 You might think, well, what if we were to apply 06:41 that to ours? 06:46 Corgi. 06:50 Oh, whoops. Sorry. 06:51 I accidentally deleted that. 06:54 Corgi. 06:56 What was our prompt here? Sticker. 07:14 And then we'll see what it creates for us. 07:18 And by, 07:20 using these prompts that we're finding through the MidJourney feed, 07:23 we're learning of different ways 07:26 that we can, 07:29 ask Midjourney to create different styles for us so that 07:33 when we want to replicate 07:36 in our head what we if we wanna take the 07:39 idea that we have in our head and put it 07:40 into reality, 07:41 we can get more prompts on things that we can 07:44 tell in the journey, 07:46 to use 07:47 to create the image that we want. 08:00 Very, very cute. 08:02 So you can see here that it's literally created, 08:04 a sticker, 08:06 which is not necessarily what you'd want because, 08:09 you probably don't want it to be like this. But 08:11 that's a good that's a good lesson. 08:15 So, yes. So that's how you can get different ideas 08:17 for different things. Now, 08:19 something 08:19 else 08:21 we'll come back, 08:23 do a search for 08:25 is 08:27 you're seeing in here that people are achieving particular looks 08:32 because 08:33 they're using character buy. 08:36 So 08:37 let's 08:38 discuss that. 08:40 So this website here 08:43 is 1 of the biggest resources online 08:46 for helping people find artist artistic styles created by specific 08:51 artists. 08:52 And if you prompt 08:54 Midjourney 08:55 using it, 08:56 then it will create art in a similar style. 09:00 Now, 09:01 this 09:02 is controversial. 09:04 If you've seen any of my videos where I've discussed 09:06 AI art before, 09:08 there are definitely a lot of 09:11 very, 09:12 very passionate comments. 09:14 Some of them quite 09:16 personally cruel, 09:18 attacking, 09:20 me 09:20 for discussing AI art because 09:23 this 09:24 is the most controversial aspect of it, 09:27 the fact that AI art has been trained on different 09:30 artists' images. And so the question is 09:34 around whether it's okay or not to use particular artists 09:38 to generate an image. 09:40 Currently, 09:41 there's there's nothing illegal about this. 09:45 So 09:46 that's why you can do it. Now whether you agree 09:48 with it or not, 09:50 I will show you that there are ways to do 09:52 it that you don't have to necessarily 09:55 use current artists. You could use artists who are now 09:58 in the public domain and whose images 10:01 and his and style are now historic. 10:04 But this is your, 10:06 current best website for finding all of these. 10:09 And again, the results you can get can be very 10:11 specific. So by using this this person here was, used 10:15 a particular artist 10:17 to achieve this, style. 10:20 So, 10:22 what you do is you 10:24 come in to say 10:26 this 1 here. You know, you're look you're creating an 10:28 image for your children. You can come in here and 10:30 you can see, the the, 10:33 10 styles for kids 10:34 and your parents. And you can find some very incredible, 10:38 artists in here. 10:40 So this here is, 10:42 a Japanese manga artist, 10:44 who created the Dragon Ball series. 10:47 And, of course, 10:48 if you were to use, 10:51 their name as a prompt, then you would get, 10:53 that particular art style. 10:56 This particular art style, you've probably seen a lot too. 11:00 This artist has created some really stunning artwork. So if 11:02 you were to use them as a prompt, 11:05 you would get some, 11:06 some, images that look quite similar. 11:10 Now if we scroll down, 11:15 keep going. 11:18 Keep going. 11:21 So 11:22 this artist here 11:24 is an example of 1 whose works are in the 11:27 public domain. 11:29 Hold on. Okay. So fingers crossed. 11:32 Starbucks has stopped barking. You can carry on. Okay. So 11:36 we found an artist 11:38 that is in the public domain. 11:41 So 11:42 let's come 11:43 and let's take your name and we'll copy it. 11:46 Come back here. 11:48 I'm gonna go and imagine 11:54 corgi, 11:58 flat, 12:00 character 12:01 by, 12:10 and let's see 12:12 what it creates for us. 12:14 And so 12:16 using this 12:17 method, 12:18 you can 12:19 get some 12:21 very specific 12:22 styles 12:23 of images 12:25 and help you very quickly 12:28 narrow down 12:29 the look 12:31 that you want. 12:33 Now, again, 12:34 not everybody necessarily 12:36 agrees with this method, but, 12:39 I do want to share it 12:42 so that, 12:43 you can make your own choices for it. 12:46 And also, 12:48 of course explain that there are ways to do it 12:50 where 12:52 you can take historical artists 12:55 and then, 12:57 use 12:59 them 13:00 to help you generate 13:02 the art. And you can see that we have 13:05 very different 13:07 images 13:08 as a result of this. 13:12 Some pretty cool ones as well. So if you'd be 13:14 looking for a particular style like this, 13:18 rather than have to narrow it down by saying things 13:21 like, you know, painted and, 13:23 having to go into the different types of there's no 13:26 different, like, particular styles of painting that you want, you 13:28 can quickly 13:31 shortcut a lot of that process 13:33 by utilizing styles which have already been created 13:38 by, 13:41 different artists. 13:43 And, 13:45 again, there's so many different ones on here to choose 13:48 from. 13:49 So, 13:51 if you come to the botanical floral styles, you'll see 13:53 that a lot of these 13:55 come from artists 13:56 who, 13:59 are historical. 14:02 This 1 these ones here, you know, are definitely not. 14:04 These are 14:05 current artists. 14:08 But this 1 yeah. 14:10 Please don't think so. Let me see, these ones here. 14:13 Yeah. Yeah. 14:14 Yes, no. I was I was like I I recognize, 14:17 Alan Kinney. 14:18 I'm fairly certain that he's not a historical 14:21 artist. 14:23 But no. 14:24 AJ, 14:25 Keeson was so there we go. So, 14:28 believe that AJ 14:30 is a historical artist, 14:31 but fairly certain that, Kenny is still, 14:36 alive. 14:38 But, 14:41 I'm not even gonna attempt, 14:45 to to, 14:46 say this 14:48 artist, 14:49 but 14:52 say the name. 14:53 They'll come and we'll take this 1. 15:00 Sunflower 15:04 drawn by 15:15 and let's see 15:17 what Midjourney creates for us 15:20 doing this. 15:23 And while this is happening, 15:25 we'll come back 15:27 and take a look at more of this website because 15:29 this website 15:30 does have a lot. As you can see, it also 15:32 has, 15:35 different guides in it too. But, yes, it has many 15:37 different styles in it to choose from. 15:42 And something else that you can do, 15:44 is search for styles. 15:50 So come and do search for cartoon. You're gonna be 15:53 able you're gonna get access to, 15:57 a lot of different, styles here that you can come 16:00 and you can get inspiration from 16:03 from different artists and 16:06 also 16:07 techniques. 16:08 So not just not just specific artists, 16:11 but it will, 16:13 there are guides for, different particular, 16:17 techniques. And it also shows you here, for example, actually, 16:19 interestingly enough, 16:21 the different, 16:22 versions, what style of art they can give you, 16:26 for similar prompts. But anyway, let's come back here. See 16:30 here? Very, very different, 16:33 style. 16:35 So that's how you can use, 16:38 different artists. 16:39 There's another website that I think is very helpful, to 16:43 know about. 16:45 And that website is PromptHero. 16:47 So you create a free account and we're gonna come 16:50 I'm gonna search for Mid Journey prompts. 16:54 And what we can do is we can come, we 16:56 can do a search for what we want. 16:57 So 16:58 let's say, for example, that we wanted to create a 17:01 pattern. 17:03 We want it to, 17:05 be in a traditional Japanese style, 17:08 but we just didn't know how to prompt it. So 17:10 we can come here and go, 17:12 Japanese 17:13 pattern 17:16 and search. 17:19 And so the results is gonna give us results which 17:22 have been uploaded by the community. 17:25 So it'll help us very quickly identify prompts which are, 17:28 helpful for us. 17:30 And so, 17:32 looking at this here, 17:38 Come take a look at this here. There's a lot 17:40 of keywords here, isn't there, 17:43 that 17:44 we may have not considered? 17:47 So I'm gonna come and click copy this to create 17:50 this very traditional looking, design. 17:53 Let's come let me click imagine. 17:57 I'm gonna copy this. 18:01 We don't need to put seamless pattern 18:03 because we're gonna put in 18:06 our 18:10 tile prompt. 18:13 So let's go, 18:15 see waves 18:19 and 18:22 use this prompt. 18:24 And then what we'll do 18:26 is we'll compare 18:28 the what we we'll compare what we get here 18:30 with what we created before because remember we created 18:36 a seamless pattern 18:38 of sea waves before, 18:41 and we gave it very 18:43 unspecific 18:44 prompts compared to this. With this 1 here, we've been 18:47 give we've given it so many more different things. 18:50 Intricate, 18:51 ornate, 18:52 you know, beautiful colorful organic texture map, 18:55 flat texture. These are 18:57 even more specific keywords that are gonna get us, 19:01 in Japanese textiles, 19:02 that's going to get us much closer to what we 19:05 want it to be versus 19:08 the very 19:09 broad 19:10 prompt that I gave it. 19:12 So this here is what we achieved through that. 19:18 And if we come back up here, you'll see that 19:21 it is very, very different, isn't it? 19:24 It is extremely 19:25 different. 19:27 This here was just waves, 19:29 and they were sea waves and they were blue because 19:31 we didn't ask it to add in, you know, the 19:33 traditional, 19:34 you know, to make it colorful 19:36 in a particular, 19:38 with the particular color, 19:40 palette that you would expect from, of course, traditional Japanese 19:42 art like this. Whereas these ones here are so much 19:45 more colorful 19:47 and, 19:48 you know, much more intricate, much more ornate. 19:52 And so, 19:54 by using, 19:56 Prompt Hero, we've been able to create very different, 20:02 prompts that can help us get much closer to what 20:04 we want by being inspired 20:06 by the prompts 20:07 that other people have created. 20:10 And that 20:12 is, 20:13 from 20:14 my experience, 20:15 the best way that I have been able to create 20:18 these prompts, 20:20 you know, using my own, 20:22 ingenuity to come up with my own ideas for how 20:24 to prompt it. 20:26 But in particular, 20:27 learning through what others prompt to help me create the 20:31 prompt for what I'm looking to create.